the philosophy of law is running up hard against the stark findings of neuroscience and psychology, and is reacting mostly by misunderstanding or willfully ignoring them. the heart of the problem has to do with mens rea, in particular the troubling underlying concepts of criminal intent and culpability. in the highly simplified way i understand it, a crime is intentional if in the perpetrator's mind there is foresight and desire -- the 'i' that is the criminal 'wants' the outcome of his committed crime.

brain studies have come along and rocked the boat. in our seminar today, the guest speaker spoke of his research on psychopaths, and the various difference in brain structure (callosal, ventricular) and function (frontal hypoactivation) that his group has found in those diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. there have, in fact, been several court cases to date where such evidence has been brought to bear. of those cases, there have been a few where criminals have been saved from the death penalty because of it.

on first brush, this idea seems intuitively correct. if a bit in someone's brain has gone wrong, if he is in some way "broken", it can't be right to punish him, because it's not his fault. in the words of the criminal at his defense: if 'i' don't have a say in the matter, 'i' can't possibly be evil. slightly closer scrutiny will reveal, however, that we've already arrived at a problem: is the 'i' in this paragraph the same as the 'i' in the first? does the psychopath have only one 'i' that is dysfunctional, or an underlying 'i', a center of volition that is simply overwhelmed by its powerful but damaged companion?

lawyers and judges are still at the stage of shrugging their shoulders over these 'interesting' philosophical conundrums, but in my opinion, the worst is yet to come, because the same logic that applies to psychopathy applies to pretty much everything. although people fight mightily against it, the fact of the matter is that all behavior comes from the brain -- the environment changes the brain which changes its environment and so forth. if you take a spear and stick it through someone's frontal lobe (without killing him), chances are that after recovering he's going to become a permanent fixture at the craps table, or a serial killer. and from that extreme example on down, everything works that way -- forces large and minute build and destroy synapses -- those connections and networks determine how we behave, and so forth. thus, all crime from shoplifting to genocide is biologically determined, and the justice system has a problem.

the accumulating body of evidence from neuroscience is all pointing to one thing -- we don't have volition as we currently understand it. it's still conceivable that some weak form of free will exists, but it's looking ever more doubtful. in all probability, there's no little man behind the curtain watching the movie, and there's no 'i' to take the blame for anything.

one big disappointment i have is that at least half of our psychology faculty don't buy this argument -- one very famous professor who will remained unnamed is still holding out strongly for the idea that evil exists. it can be somewhat distasteful to accept the thought that we don't have volition, and i know i certainly took long enough to come round to it, but if you really stare hard at the facts i'm not sure i see any other logical conclusion. i'm moderately confident that there will be a day (assuming we don't vaporize ourselves with an atomic weapon or get poisoned to death by high-fructose corn syrup) when we'll look back on our textbooks and think: how quaint, we used to talk about the choices people make, much the same way as we look back on 16th century texts that discuss humors and vapors and whatnot. (if i'm right, hopefully the interweb will survive long enough for this to be proof of my prescience. and if i'm wrong, well, i'll be dead anyway.)

where that leaves us with regard to the law is a little bit trickier, but i think the finesse here lies in the fact that because of the illusion of morality that we've evolved, we're obliged to act according to that moral code. which means, essentially, that we're right back to where we started, that even if we don't have free will, we have to punish and correct the deviants among us as if we did. this is an utterly delightful thought, and was my very purpose in writing this post. truly delicious ironies like that don't come along very often.

run #6

ended today with one dropout, my first. it's hard not to take these things personally, but this has also been a semester far more difficult than i was told it would be, and i don't have time to drop by the hospital twice a day to make sure that everyone's needs are being pandered to. n=9; 21 to go. 31 if you go by my advisor's count (excessively conservative) and 15 if you go by mine (way too hopeful).

i think my difficulty with teaching is seeing it as the actual 'job' part of my work, as opposed to the research and clinic hours that i supposedly want to do. (supposedly). when kids don't show up, even after promises of handouts and candy and exam hints, i take it as a personal affront, even though i know it's that undergraduates just haven't gotten out of bed at 9 in the morning.

but the real transaction is this: the department paid me x amount of money last year, and i have to give them 2 semesters of good service in return. nowhere does it come into the equation that students have to avail themselves of this service. it's the kind of logic you have to beat into your head with a stick, especially when you have the disposition to take things all too personally, but the head-beating, nevertheless, has to occur.

i bought 3 pots of roses last week, not hybrid teas, but not, i think the sort that match minzhi's apotheosis of a rose either (apotheroses?). two lots have now perished, one from careless placement beside an open window, and one that started wilting almost immediately upon being sat on the sill, but i am holding out hope for the pot with pink flowers which is flourishing nicely and seems quite cheerful despite the diminishing hours of sunlight. it's unseasonably warm for october too, but i have no idea if that makes any difference to the species. to be honest, my horticultural experience on the whole is horribly limited -- i think i was responsible for a couple of small cacti when i was growing up -- and so maybe i'm just doing something completely and disastrously wrong, overwatering or underwatering or goodness knows what. i think i need a seymour-like plant that can say things like FEED ME or THE PH LEVEL OF MY SOIL IS TOO HIGH and send me scurrying off to rectify the situation post haste.

everyone bailed on reading club last night except laura and thomas and the housemate and i, so we sat around instead watching monty python sketches and telling extremely offensive racist jokes (how do you fit a hundred jews in a volkswagon? put them in the ashtray). also, parsing sentences such as "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo". (can you do it for "Fish fish fish fish fish fish fish"? and do you know any others because i'd like to hear them.)

pissed

i was all ready to watch for the bible tells me so with t. tonight, only to find that it had ended its limited run yesterday. of course, when presented with the choice of watching that or eastern promises last tuesday, i chose the latter. dammit.

speaking of which, it exasperates me no idea that so much of humanity's effort is spent quarreling about the "morality" of being gay* -- i mean, it's just such an absolute no-brainer compared to the real ethical questions we're going to be facing in the next 10-20 years: what happens when we develop a reliable genetic test for psychopathy? is it really morally acceptable to continue farming animals the way we do? what happens when we're able to quantify consciousness? it's so frustrating that the task of convincing people of the obvious -- all men are equal, might is not right, and the arbiter of morality is certainly not you -- is such a sisyphean one that we're forced to spend our time piddling in the shallows, while great and truly worrying problems loom large on the horizon.

* i leave no further comment on this. click at your own risk, because i felt infuriated for the entire afternoon.

i was reading an article in science about WiTricity the other day, and discovered the rather cool fact that marin soljacic is actually yidong's advisor in mit. i admit to only a hazy understanding of both the science and the practical ramifications of the technology, but it sounds suspiciously to me like the kid is somehow on his way to making several billion dollars from this venture. i'm incredibly jealous. as i've said before when i talked about the rasch experiment, i really need to get on something lucrative, stat.

Baby Kermit, in The Muppet Show, 1x10:

Halfway down the stairs is a stair where I sit
There isn't any other stair quite like it
I'm not at the bottom; I'm not at the top
So this is the stair where I always stop.

Halfway up the stairs isn't up and isn't down
It isn't in the nursery; it isn't in the town
And all sorts of funny thoughts run round my head
It isn't really anywhere, it's somewhere else instead.

Halfway down the stairs is a stair where I sit
There isn't any other stair quite like it
I'm not at the bottom; I'm not at the top
So this is the stair where I always stop.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy.

With a load of iron ore - 26,000 tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early

The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconson
As the big freighters go it was bigger than most
With a crew and the Captain well seasoned.

Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ships bell rang
Could it be the North Wind they'd been feeling.

The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the Captain did, too,
T'was the witch of November come stealing.

The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashing
When afternoon came it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane West Wind

When supper time came the old cook came on deck
Saying fellows it's too rough to feed ya
At 7PM a main hatchway caved in
He said fellas it's been good to know ya.

The Captain wired in he had water coming in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the words turn the minutes to hours
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd fifteen more miles behind her.

They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the ruins of her ice water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams,
The islands and bays are for sportsmen.

And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered.

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
The church bell chimed, 'til it rang 29 times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they say, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early.


               The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Gordon Lightfoot

depressive realism

-- is the theory that depressed people get into the state they are in because they somehow see the world with greater clarity, and thus more accurately. you don't have to be a genius to tell that this was something i held true since i was very young. through the lens of adolescent angst, it seemed so correct, so perfect, a real paragon of cynicism. of course that's why i'm unhappy. it's because i'm smarter.

so now that we're grown, and can look back on those times with a mixture of amusement and disgust, we can ask ourselves: what's a more mature formulation of that theory? well, the model is not exactly true -- it doesn't predict depression. people get depressed for a whole load of reasons, but just as many dumb people get it as insightful ones. however, if you only study people who do not meet diagnostic criteria for the illness, the pattern re-emerges: the happier a person is, the more deluded* he tends to be (it's not a trivial correlation either).

so here's a rare case of intuition being borne out by statistics, and the cynical viewpoint actually being sort of correct. life sucks, and you get happy by believing that it doesn't.

there's a big problem with this, though. thought experiment: you invent a brand of therapy where people actively learn how to be ignorant. not CBT, you understand, not monitoring cognition, or filtering thought processes, but actively pursuing ignorance. my guess: not too many people lining up at the door**. which means this: unhappiness has a price, and it's possible to derive utility from elsewhere, at the cost of negative happiness.

there are other examples of this, which i've discussed with some of you in the recent past: martyrdom, or (irrational) sacrifices made in order to claim the moral high ground. it just goes to show -- even our newer ideas of utility are outmoded, and there are much higher abstractions of value that i don't think have yet been fully considered.

* psychologists don't like to call it "delusion", because of the specific connotations of the word, but it obviously best gets across what i mean.

** i would, incidentally.

i wasn't sure whether or not admit that i hosted minz for 2 days last week, but now that she's blogged about it i guess it's not the world's biggest secret any more. i had to be in the lab a lot, but we still got to eat greasy food on park benches, and do nodding head, which i'm growing increasingly fond of, and capogiro, which had rosemary honey goat milk as a new flavor (good). and learn about zeugmas, and syllepsis in particular, as in "our respective disciplines involve mind- and storybook-reading".

thomas' quintet had a gig at the rotunda on saturday, and after promising to go for his last two performances and bailing, i decided that the decent thing to do was actually show up for one. the quintet was perfectly lovely -- all the other acts that preceded it, however, were excruciatingly weird -- a scantily-dressed woman stomping barefoot on broken glass, a buxom tit-twirler mixing martinis in shakers strapped over her breasts, sylvia plath put to music with black-and-white videos in the background of a jet-propelled turtle soaring over the sea. i abandoned fs halfway through the performance to join the other shaun and admit that my wtf quotient had reached capacity. so had his, but there was no escaping until thomas went on, and so we waited as the parade of strangeness went on and on for approximately forever.

the evening was sort of rescued by supper, although it was kind of awkward having two recently-broken-up couples at the table, and no alcoholic beverages. then jared and adam and stephen and i repaired up to marbar ($1 long island teas), and discovered firsthand why undergrad bars suck.

judging from the results of the first 2 quizzes and the exam, i seem to have ended up with a rather lousy bunch of students. and no, i'm not blaming myself, because it's so beyond the days where i would do that, and i know all about how there is after all an element of selection (the 9 a.m. section fills up last, thus the people who are most disorganized tend to end up in it.)

friend shaun is in town, and surprised at the fact that the ghetto that is philadelphia actually has semi-decent food if you know where to look. i've been in school/lab most of the day since he's arrived, but my guilt at being a somewhat inattentive host is alleviated slightly by the fact that this was exactly what happened to me in berkeley three years ago. what goes around, etc.

we have many interesting neighbors who i am just beginning to meet -- i am particularly fond of the retired english professor (19th century american lit: twain, dickinson, james) who is funny, warm, self-deprecating, ferociously smart, and everything else that a good academic should be. i love my advisor to death, but you know, [evans]he's a scientist[/evans], and there's just something about english professors that gives me the warm fuzzies. this one came complete with walking stick, culinary prowess, and a happily-partnered lesbian daughter (with kids), so you can already imagine my unabashed delight. he told us about how he left berkeley mid-phd to join the navy for wickham-esque reasons, how the vietnam war was, like for so many in his generation, his life's great eclaircissement. upon returning to berkeley, he discovered that he did not want to be a medieval lit scholar after all, and made a career out of (i think) deconstructing poe. i informed him that i mostly hang out with people who have the cp philosophy that anything written in the last 300 years is not literature, and probably not even worth reading, and he admitted that when he was still in short trousers he often thought the same thing, but that people come round. "i teach a class on the main line," he said "just so i don't get rusty, and sometimes we even read books by authors who are still alive." i confessed that it was no great taboo for me, and we shared a moment of conspirational solidarity.

it would be nice to have him and his wife over for dinner some time (or have him for reading club? he might die!), but i don't know if it's incredibly weird for someone in his twenties to invite a retired couple over. maybe he'll ask us? i realize increasingly that i have no concept of social convention whatsoever; i feel like i've been shielded from having to think about it all my life, and now i have no idea of what to do with myself. therefore: i'm treating this as the official adolescence of my social development, where i get to metaphorically break vases and spill soda on the carpet and do other awkward things. better late than never, after all.

speaking of reading club, we had, last week, ted chiang's understand, which is worth a read if you have some time to kill.